Critical Writing Index

The art on war: The Blackwood and Justina M. Barnicke galleries are preparing to launch a new exhibit that focuses on the relationship of contemporary art and its reflections of war.

by Andrea Grassi

The Medium, Jan. 14, 2008, p. 5

Describing war as an omnipresent three-letter word in popular media, Andrea Grassi interviews Seamus Kealy, curator of University of Toronto's critically themed war exhibition Signals in the Dark to illuminate UofT's students on the impulses towards reactionary art about war. Kealy identifies the alienation provided by the televisual gaze and the disparity between mythological representations of terror from afar and political reality, as definitive specification for selecting the exhibition's artwork.

Citing each piece of artwork as a much needed "form of protest" against the dominance the military and media has over production of war images, Kealy aims to relocate the agency of viewership and interdisciplinary political participation within the cultural production of global artists.

ITEM 2008.060 – available for viewing in the Research Centre

Videos, Artworks and Artists Cited

UntitledAbdel-Karim Khalil

bannersDominique Blain